Thursday, August 24, 2006

So apparently this "regular guy" who met with Bush to express his gratitude for Katrina relief is a Republican pol, who had a White House meeting on his calendar before he even left his teenie weenie trailer. Another Potemkin Village to distract us from the fact that the Emperor has lost all interest in the Gulf Coast, except as a photo op in an election year.

And the old "I'm a regular guy, he's a regular guy" schtick is insulting. Rockey is a sellout to the thousands who have been ravaged and forgotten, their lives torn apart. What's he hoping to get out of it, a double-wide? Screw him for being a shill for this morally bankrupt regime.

Rockey wishes the Emperor could have another term? Pardon me while I throw up.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

On September 11, 2001, I was having breakfast with my 10 month old son, looking forward to buying the new Bob Dylan cd, due to be released that day. On NPR, there was a short announcement that an airplane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. I turned on the TV, initiating a day of fear and chaos as all hell seemed to be breaking loose. My thoughts that morning were only of my wife, working for a Federal agency across the river from the Potomac, as rumors swirled in a general state of panic (a bomb outside the State Department, smoke hanging over the city). Great relief when my wife arrived back at our suburban Maryland home, having paid a D.C. cab driver $200 to get her there. That afternoon, we walked along the C&O canal, surreal beauty all around as we held each other with relief and contemplated the horrors of the day.

A few days later I bought the Dylan cd:

I got my back to the sun cause the light is too intenseI can see what everybody in the world is up againstWon't turn back, can't go backSometimes we push too farOne day you'll open up your eyes and you'll see where you are

In those days before Bush/Cheney began to openly and blatantly break their vow to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States", Dylan wrote:

Tweedledum and TweedledeeThey're throwing knives into the treesTwo big bags of dead man's bonesGot their noses to the grindstone

They got a parade permit and a police escort

Is there a better characterization than this?

Tweedledee is a lowdown sorry old manTweedledum will stab you where you stand"I've had too much of your company"Says Tweedledum to Tweedledee

Tweedledee and TweedledumAll that and more and then someThey walk among the stately treesThey know the secrets of the breeze

Neither one gonna turn and runThey're making a voyage to the sun"His Master's voice is callin' me"Says Tweedledum to Tweedledee

And a few years later, we are treated to another spectacle of Imperial neglect

High water risin' the shacks are fallin' downFolks lose their possessions and folks are leavin' townBertha Mason shook it - broke it Then she hung it on a wallSays "You dance with who they tell you to or you don't dance at all"It's tough out thereHigh water everywhere

High water risin'Six inches 'bove my headCoffins poppin' in the streets Like balloons made out of leadWater pouring into VicksburgDon't know what I'm gonna doDon't reach out for me she saidCan't you see I'm drowning tooIt's rough out thereHigh water everywhere

And an eerie echo of Emperor George's bravado

George Lewes told the Englishman, the Italian and the JewYou can't open up your eyes, boysTo every conceivable point of viewThey got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway 5Judge say to the High SheriffI want him dead or alive - either one I don't careHigh water everywhere

Love and Theft is a masterful pastiche of American minstrelry, folk blues, and gentle crooning, but some tracks evoke a sense of prophecy, a foretelling of the subsequent five years, and still give me chills when I hear them. Dylan has always been celebrated as a prophet: he is certainly a man with uncanny insights into the madness of modern life and the darker aspects of human nature.